AS soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night
we went down the lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in
the lean-to, and got out our pile of fox-fire, and went
to work. We cleared everything out of the way, about four
or five foot along the middle of the bottom log. Tom said
we was right behind Jim's bed now, and we'd dig in under
it, and when we got through there couldn't nobody in the
cabin ever know there was any hole there, because Jim's
counterpin hung down most to the ground, and you'd have
to raise it up and look under to see the hole. So we dug
and dug with the case-knives till most midnight; and then
we was dog-tired, and our hands was blistered, and yet
you couldn't see we'd done anything hardly. At last I
says:
"This ain't no thirty-seven year job; this is a
thirty-eight year job, Tom Sawyer."
He never said nothing. But he sighed, and pretty soon
he stopped digging, and then for a good little while I
knowed that he was thinking. Then he says:
"It ain't no use, Huck, it ain't a-going to work.
If we was prisoners it would, because then we'd have as
many years as we wanted, and no hurry; and we wouldn't
get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while they was
changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get
blistered, and we could keep it up right along, year in
and year out, and do it right, and the way it ought to be
done. But WE can't fool along; we got to rush; we ain't
got no time to spare. If we was to put in another night
this way we'd have to knock off for a week to let our
hands get well — couldn't touch a case-knife with them
sooner."
"Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?"
"I'll tell you. It ain't right, and it ain't
moral, . and I wouldn't like it to get out; but there
ain't only just the one way: we got to dig him out with
the picks, and LET ON it's case-knives."
"NOW you're TALKING!" I says; "your
head gets leveler and leveler all the time, Tom Sawyer,"
I says. "Picks is the thing, moral or no moral; and
as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it,
nohow. When I start in to steal a nigger, or a
watermelon, or a Sunday-school book, I ain't no ways
particular how it's done so it's done. What I want is my
nigger; or what I want is my watermelon; or what I want
is my Sunday-school book; and if a pick's the handiest
thing, that's the thing I'm a-going to dig that nigger or
that watermelon or that Sunday-school book out with; and
I don't give a dead rat what the authorities thinks about
it nuther."
"Well," he says, "there's excuse for
picks and letting-on in a case like this; if it warn't
so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand by and
see the rules broke — because right is right, and wrong
is wrong, and a body ain't got no business doing wrong
when he ain't ignorant and knows better. It might answer
for YOU to dig Jim out with a pick, WITHOUT any letting
on, because you don't know no better; but it wouldn't for
me, because I do know better. Gimme a case-knife."
He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung
it down, and says:
"Gimme a CASE-KNIFE."
I didn't know just what to do — but then I thought. I
scratched around amongst the old tools, and got a pickaxe
and give it to him, and he took it and went to work, and
never said a word.
He was always just that particular. Full of principle.
So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and
shoveled, turn about, and made the fur fly. We stuck to
it about a half an hour, which was as long as we could
stand up; but we had a good deal of a hole to show for it.
When I got up stairs I looked out at the window and see
Tom doing his level best with the lightning-rod, but he
couldn't come it, his hands was so sore. At last he says:
"It ain't no use, it can't be done. What you
reckon I better do? Can't you think of no way?"
"Yes," I says, "but I reckon it ain't
regular. Come up the stairs, and let on it's a lightning-rod."
So he done it.
Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass
candlestick in the house, for to make some pens for Jim
out of, and six tallow candles; and I hung around the
nigger cabins and laid for a chance, and stole three tin
plates. Tom says it wasn't enough; but I said nobody
wouldn't ever see the plates that Jim throwed out,
because they'd fall in the dog-fennel and jimpson weeds
under the window-hole — then we could tote them back and
he could use them over again. So Tom was satisfied. Then
he says:
"Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the
things to Jim."
"Take them in through the hole," I says,
"when we get it done."
He only just looked scornful, and said something about
nobody ever heard of such an idiotic idea, and then he
went to studying. By and by he said he had ciphered out
two or three ways, but there warn't no need to decide on
any of them yet. Said we'd got to post Jim first.
That night we went down the lightning-rod a little
after ten, and took one of the candles along, and
listened under the window-hole, and heard Jim snoring; so
we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him. Then we whirled
in with the pick and shovel, and in about two hours and a
half the job was done. We crept in under Jim's bed and
into the cabin, and pawed around and found the candle and
lit it, and stood over Jim awhile, and found him looking
hearty and healthy, and then we woke him up gentle and
gradual. He was so glad to see us he most cried; and
called us honey, and all the pet names he could think of;
and was for having us hunt up a cold-chisel to cut the
chain off of his leg with right away, and clearing out
without losing any time. But Tom he showed him how
unregular it would be, and set down and told him all
about our plans, and how we could alter them in a minute
any time there was an alarm; and not to be the least
afraid, because we would see he got away, SURE. So Jim he
said it was all right, and we set there and talked over
old times awhile, and then Tom asked a lot of questions,
and when Jim told him Uncle Silas come in every day or
two to pray with him, and Aunt Sally come in to see if he
was comfortable and had plenty to eat, and both of them
was kind as they could be, Tom says:
"NOW I know how to fix it. We'll send you some
things by them."
I said, "Don't do nothing of the kind; it's one
of the most jackass ideas I ever struck;" but he
never paid no attention to me; went right on. It was his
way when he'd got his plans set.
So he told Jim how we'd have to smuggle in the rope-ladder
pie and other large things by Nat, the nigger that fed
him, and he must be on the lookout, and not be surprised,
and not let Nat see him open them; and we would put small
things in uncle's coatpockets and he must steal them out;
and we would tie things to aunt's apron-strings or put
them in her apron-pocket, if we got a chance; and told
him what they would be and what they was for. And told
him how to keep a journal on the shirt with his blood,
and all that. He told him everything. Jim he couldn't see
no sense in the most of it, but he allowed we was white
folks and knowed better than him; so he was satisfied,
and said he would do it all just as Tom said.
Jim had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a
right down good sociable time; then we crawled out
through the hole, and so home to bed, with hands that
looked like they'd been chawed. Tom was in high spirits.
He said it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and
the most intellectural; and said if he only could see his
way to it we would keep it up all the rest of our lives
and leave Jim to our children to get out; for he believed
Jim would come to like it better and better the more he
got used to it. He said that in that way it could be
strung out to as much as eighty year, and would be the
best time on record. And he said it would make us all
celebrated that had a hand in it.
In the morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped
up the brass candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put
them and the pewter spoon in his pocket. Then we went to
the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's notice off, Tom
shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a corn-pone
that was in Jim's pan, and we went along with Nat to see
how it would work, and it just worked noble; when Jim bit
into it it most mashed all his teeth out; and there
warn't ever anything could a worked better. Tom said so
himself. Jim he never let on but what it was only just a
piece of rock or something like that that's always
getting into bread, you know; but after that he never bit
into nothing but what he jabbed his fork into it in three
or four places first.
And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish
light, here comes a couple of the hounds bulging in from
under Jim's bed; and they kept on piling in till there
was eleven of them, and there warn't hardly room in there
to get your breath. By jings, we forgot to fasten that
lean-to door! The nigger Nat he only just hollered "Witches"
once, and keeled over on to the floor amongst the dogs,
and begun to groan like he was dying. Tom jerked the door
open and flung out a slab of Jim's meat, and the dogs
went for it, and in two seconds he was out himself and
back again and shut the door, and I knowed he'd fixed the
other door too. Then he went to work on the nigger,
coaxing him and petting him, and asking him if he'd been
imagining he saw something again. He raised up, and
blinked his eyes around, and says:
"Mars Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't
b'lieve I see most a million dogs, er devils, er some'n,
I wisht I may die right heah in dese tracks. I did, mos'
sholy. Mars Sid, I FELT um — I FELT um, sah; dey was all
over me. Dad fetch it, I jis' wisht I could git my han's
on one er dem witches jis' wunst — on'y jis' wunst —
it's all I'd ast. But mos'ly I wisht dey'd lemme 'lone, I
does."
Tom says:
"Well, I tell you what I think. What makes them
come here just at this runaway nigger's breakfast-time?
It's because they're hungry; that's the reason. You make
them a witch pie; that's the thing for YOU to do."
"But my lan', Mars Sid, how's I gwyne to make 'm
a witch pie? I doan' know how to make it. I hain't ever
hearn er sich a thing b'fo'."
"Well, then, I'll have to make it myself."
"Will you do it, honey? — Ñwill you? I'll
wusshup de groun' und' yo' foot, I will!"
"All right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and
you've been good to us and showed us the runaway nigger.
But you got to be mighty careful. When we come around,
you turn your back; and then whatever we've put in the
pan, don't you let on you see it at all. And don't you
look when Jim unloads the pan — something might happen,
I don't know what. And above all, don't you HANDLE the
witch-things."
"HANNEL 'm, Mars Sid? What IS you a-talkin'
'bout? I wouldn' lay de weight er my finger on um, not
f'r ten hund'd thous'n billion dollars, I wouldn't."